


Excuses

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dancing, F/F, Flirting, Fluff, Possible Spoilers, Post Regeneration, Post-Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 11:38:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11577306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: The Doctor didn't quite realise that when she got back to her lessons at the university, her students would want to know where her old body had gone. Missy attempts to provide a solution.





	Excuses

**Author's Note:**

> This portrayal of Thirteen is, as with my other fics, purely speculative!

“Morning everyone!” The Doctor called to the full lecture hall that faced her that morning. “Sorry that I’m late again. I’d talk about how it doesn’t matter really because time is all relative, but I’m fairly sure that I’ve been through that one before recently.”

There were a few mumbled ‘good morning’s, and then someone shouted out. “Where’s the Doctor? Is he sick?” 

For a moment, she was flummoxed- she was right here, no perception filter, no alien plots causing people not to see her. And then she remembered. Regeneration. She looked completely different now and these silly humans knew nothing about it. Worse still, she’d completely forgotten that anything had changed.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m the Doctor!” Well, she wasn’t lying. If she said something enough times, people usually stopped questioning it eventually, even students. Though students were stubborn and she did hear a few protests.

“Seriously, where is he?” That was the same voice from before, but she studiously ignored it this time. She had a lecture on gravity to give, and possibly a few interesting tangents about Isaac Newton, apples, and black holes to go off on. Students liked the tangents and it certainly made lecturing more interesting, though she still couldn’t wait to get out of the hall to go out somewhere in the TARDIS.

“Excuse me, miss, where’s the Doctor?” Clearly students were even more stubborn than she had anticipated. Ah well.

“Students, please calm down. If you listen to my lecture, I promise I will explain everything when it’s over.” She doubted any of them would remember to ask after two hours of science tangents, and if they did, she could make an excuse and hurry off. She could definitely tell them they weren’t listening and then point to someone sleeping in the back of the lecture hall (an inevitability).

At the end of the lecture, while she was wrapping up by telling them all to do further reading and an essay if they wanted to add extra credits to whatever qualification they were failing this time, a whole horde of hands shot up. These kids had awfully good memories. And they were obviously a whole lot more attached to the old Doctor than they let on. Well, that was sweet, she supposed. She’d be flattered if that wouldn’t look extremely odd to all of the students. 

“I have a very urgent meeting to attend,” she lied. “Any questions, you can, ah...email me.” Email. Ha. She hadn’t checked her university email in ten years, which was probably about when emails were invented.

“I hope he’s okay!” Someone called. The Doctor nodded and tried to smile in a way that didn’t look distracted. She hadn’t experienced the distance Missy had described to her when someone described a previous regeneration with something that no longer applied. She, the Doctor, was okay, but the ‘he’ they were all thinking of was only half her.

Really, she couldn’t get out of that lecture hall fast enough. She didn't retreat to her office- instead, it was the vault that she ran for. Somehow, Missy had ended up inside it again after all of that business on the space station- all she remembered of it was a strange girl, and something about Bill. It was eerily similar to her own very hazy memories of the moments before her regeneration.

She knocked gently on the door first, just in case Missy was doing something embarrassing, and once she was called in she opened the vault door. “I forgot I’d regenerated when I went to the lecture,” she said, smiling as much as she could manage, and Missy laughed.

“You forgot? Dear, that’s a silly mistake even for you. I bet those poor human children were confused…” Missy hopped down from the piano- the Doctor suspected she had jumped up there for show only a minute ago- and wandered over to take in the sight of her best friend. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, perfectly,” she said. “I just didn’t think about what I’d tell them. I have to stay here, of course, and because I was meant to stay here I never thought I’d regenerate before I was done. You know. And I never realised that students might want an explanation for a...rather large change, for them, I suppose.”

“Just tell them you’re a girl now! It’s...what, 2017? Young people are supposed to be accepting of that sort of thing.” Missy waved a hand flippantly, and the Doctor looked at her, unimpressed.

“That might have worked, if not for the fact that this body looks about half the age of my previous one.”

“Half? I’d say a sixth. For humans you were ancient before and now you’re almost as little as the people you’re teaching, silly.” A twirl around the piano to punctuate her words. “How advanced is the plastic surgery at this point, or will they find it a bit creepy?”

“I am not getting plastic surgery!” The Doctor rolled her eyes, striding forwards and taking a seat at the piano in the hopes that it would encourage Missy to stop dancing around and sit with her. “I just hope that the students accept me soon enough. It’s no fun warding off all their questions.”

“I meant that you could pretend you’d had lots of plastic surgery overnight if that wasn’t too creepy for them, but I think it is.” The Doctor nodded. Human faces were fairly confusing, but she understood that the excuse Missy was suggesting wouldn’t go down well. “Ah well. Say you’re grumpy Scottish’s daughter.”

“Hmm.” She wasn’t overly keen on lying to her students- carefully avoiding the truth was much more ethical, probably- but it seemed like that was the only way to do this. Lie, or have them all ambush her with questions every time she walked into the lecture hall.

“Who else are you going to be? You can’t be his granddaughter, I don’t think you can get away with flattering your pretty face like that.” Missy rubbed her hands together; it was cold and almost impossible to find any carpets they both liked. “I suppose humans don’t inherit all their positions, though. How will you explain that?”

“I’m just as clever as my past self, and with slightly more experience to boot. I could say that my past self retired, and wrote me a glowing letter of recommendation to the university, so they hired me. His daughter.” That was still unpleasantly odd to say- it just seemed wrong. But it was the only thing humans would believe.

“Hmm, not good enough,” she said immediately. “Firstly, you have about a week’s more experience. Your only more meaningful experience was dying. Again. And you can’t exactly say that, can you?”

“I’m still just as clever as my past self. We act just similarly enough to say we were related, I’m sure. What could possibly be ‘not good enough’ about me? I’m younger, more energetic, and just as capable of imparting information to these students.”

“Humans have this awful fixation on faces.” Missy moved out of the containment field which the Doctor hadn’t even realised wasn’t activated. She supposed she didn’t really need it, but she had been using it before, when her body and mind were still frail. “They won’t accept a sudden replacement like this, as far as I know. Though they are rather fickle.”

“Are you sure? I think you will find that I am the expert on humans here, Missy.” The Doctor folded her arms, elbow brushing the keys of the piano and making an unpleasant ‘plonk’ noise. Missy snorted.

“You’ve gone clumsy,” she said with a grin. “Not exactly elegant before, but at least you knew where your limbs were even though you had limited control.”

“Can I still excuse it through post-regeneration mishaps? Maybe coordination is coming to me slowly.”

“No, I think you’re stuck with a clumsy body this time. What a shame, I was hoping you would be able to dance with me.” Missy stepped back around the piano, extending a hand. “Why don’t we try that? It’ll take your mind off the human children for a bit.”

“They’re not children, technically,” the Doctor said, taking her hand. “They may be to us, but to each other they’re adults now. That particular lecture was of some of the older ones, if by only a fraction.” Missy pulled her closer once their hands were together, and she attempted to spin away. What actually happened was that she tripped over her own shoe, almost falling right back into Missy’s arms. Thankfully, she righted herself at the last moment. 

“They may be adults, but you have the coordination of a child at the moment,” Missy remarked. “Next time, do try and actually fall over. That would at least be amusing…”

“Excuse you, I am very amusing,” she said. “But that’s due to my wit and charm, not any perceived comic relief I may cause through my developing coordination. Completely new body, you know. I’m a bit shorter this time round.”

“And less gangly. The old Scottish one was all arms and legs and flailing. Honestly, I don’t know how I coped with him.” 

The Doctor shot Missy a look. “You’ve coped with my giant scarf phase and my vegetable-wearing phase, I’m sure some long limbs didn't inconvenience you greatly. You, on the other hand, have been a great inconvenience to me. Remember when you were a snake?”

“Not particularly, if I’m going to be honest with you,” she said. “I don’t imagine I’d want to remember it, either. It wasn’t one of my best moments and I don’t think I was coherent for much of it. Your body then was rather sweet though, wasn’t it? Bit of an airhead, though.”

“I’m not sure ‘airhead’ is quite the right word. Chronically amnesiac, perhaps. Very much a lost little puppy-dog, even I will admit that much. I believe I improved a little bit after your serpentine self was dealt with, although the fact that I can’t say for certain tells me that I can’t have improved too much.”

Missy chuckled and started moving in a loose circle, guiding the Doctor with a hand placed on her back. “I know I saw you a few other times, but I will admit it’s foggy. The Time War really did mess things up for the both of us.”

“For everyone, really,” she said. She didn’t really want to think about that. The past was something she would rather leave behind, but there was lots of it with Missy.

“Let’s not think about it, dear. Instead, let’s focus on the fact that you’re actually dancing and you haven’t made a misstep in two whole minutes. It’s a miracle!” Missy glanced down at both their feet, an eyebrow raised. “Are you sure you weren’t being clumsy on purpose?”

The Doctor managed to ‘choose’ that time to accidentally step back over the edge of the containment field step, which she hadn’t been expecting, at which point she stumbled at the change in height, fell backwards, hit a nearby chair, and finally landed on her backside before pulling Missy down on top of her.

“Oops,” she said sheepishly, trying to shift so that she wasn’t being quite so squashed by Missy. 

“Oops? If you ask me, this is your attempt at flirting.” Missy put her hands on the Doctor’s shoulders, fixing her with a piercing gaze. “I’d really have to advise you to leave that sort of thing to me, though…”

“I don’t flirt,” she said immediately. “I don’t have to flirt. But we don’t have to get up, if you’re happy to lie here and let me ‘leave it to you’.” To try and add an extra sting to it, she did her best estimation of a Scottish accent, which was shockingly awful considering her experience.

“I was going to kiss you, but then you went and did that awful impersonation, so I may have to stab you with something instead.” Missy sighed. “Or I could be convinced to kiss you anyway, if you apologised.” She tapped the Doctor’s nose with one finger. “You know you want to.”

“There’s no way I’ll apologise for a perfectly respectable sentence like the one I just uttered,” she said. “There was nothing wrong with that and I wouldn’t beg for a kiss from you anyway.” She could probably get one just from waiting, or if she smiled enough.

“I don’t recall asking you to beg, just to apologise! Honestly, Doctor, your memory just be fading in your old age.” Missy sat back, still not standing up. The Doctor had a feeling she might be stuck in this chair for quite some time.

“Maybe your judgement is the thing that’s faded, if you think I can’t tell what you really want,” she said. She wanted to lean up to kiss Missy herself, but that would probably count as losing. Missy had always been more touchy than her, so she’d give in eventually. Hopefully before the blood in her legs stopped flowing.

“You have such a low opinion of me, dear. I suppose I ought to be offended, but I’m really not. Instead I’m just going to admire that pretty blush you’ve acquired. Don’t tell me you like me doing this?” Missy patted her on the cheek. “Simply adorable, you are.”

“I can’t say the same for you,” she said, really hoping that she wasn’t actually blushing. The problem was that even if she hadn’t been before, she definitely was now. She didn’t exactly like being called adorable, because she was two thousand years old and that doesn’t really go very well with ‘adorable’, but she never could be that cross at Missy these days.

“Aww… You need to work on your insults, Doctor. Now, did you want that kiss or not? I could sit here all day, but I distinctly remember you complaining to me about a very large pile of essays you had to mark. I’m not letting you up until I hear you apologise.”

Needless to say, they sat there until the Doctor couldn’t feel her legs anymore, and Missy didn’t get the kiss she seemed to want so badly, but she did get to complain about how stubborn the Doctor was. After all, the essays could wait for another day, and all her worries? They vanished when Missy was around.

**Author's Note:**

> The situation portrayed in this is an au where (spoilers for the episode) Heather and Bill saved Missy and plonked her back in the vault using magical lesbian powers. I wish I had magical lesbian powers tbh.


End file.
